Dewey football sets sights on rebuilding

Heading into this week’s spring football practice, few area football head coaches may face the daunting task eyed by Dewey High School’s Ashley Henley.

Heading into this week’s spring football practice, few area football head coaches may face the daunting task eyed by Dewey High School’s Ashley Henley.

Not only does Henley replace a Bulldogger coaching icon in Chris Revard, but also he has to rebuild almost from the foundation up.

The Doggers will crash Monday into the OSSAA-allowed football practice, which will stretch through the next two weeks; the Doggers will cap their spring workout by participating in the Adair team camp.

Henley — who served last year as Dewey’s assistant head coach — will have to develop a new starting quarterback, find a way to fill the void left by 1,600-yard rusher Jared Fink and replace a clutch receiver in Trenton Keene.

And, that’s just for starters.

In fact, Henley will basically be looking for almost all new starters on offense and several fresh first-stringers on defense.

"Primarily, we want to get an idea of our personnel," Henley said about spring football practice. "We have that big senior class we’re losing. It’s matter of getting the players we have in the right spots. Our primary goal will be to establish who’s going to play where, and to come out healthy."

In addition to retooling at the skill positions, Henley and his staff also will need to restock the offensive line, which lost four seniors.

"We have only receiver back that started all year," Henley added.

In addition to putting together the jigsaw puzzle of talent and potential with position, Henley said he and his coaches "will install some stuff. We’ll be pretty simple."

Dewey powered to a 5-5 regular season record last year and was knocked out in the first round of the Class 3A playoffs. Dewey has been to the playoffs in twice in the last three years.

Former head coach Chris Revard resigned — after 11 years at the helm — in order to become the school’s assistant athletic director.